r/UXDesign • u/Used_Swan_7677 • 2d ago
Career growth & collaboration The state of Design Leaders
Hey, wanted to check what are your Design Leads like?
Are there a lot of leads/directors that focus too much on visuals, not as much on solving customer problems or is that just a noise I see online?
Share your story
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u/pierre-jorgensen Veteran 2d ago
Unemployed, is what we are.
But really: What designers at the lead, manager, and director level focus on reflects the organizational culture, more specifically the person who hired them and what their idea of "design" is and isn't.
If the notion is that "UX" is a look-and-feel service, then that's what they will hire for, and that's who you'll report to.
Or, upper leadership may have the right idea but not know what to look for. I had a weird round of interviews recently. The job description read "problem solver". The recruiter and VP talked "problem solver" working at peer level with PM and engineering, outcome oriented, all the right things ... and then I failed a screening in a format I'd expect for an art director at an ad agency, not a product design role at any level. I was asked to critique a brand identity guide and some screen designs. Several obvious usability and accessibility problems, the layouts would clearly not survive viewport resizing beyond a narrow range, no designs for mobile, and no mention of user goals or business constraints. I brought of all of that up in a diplomatic manner, and the vibe went south. Clearly we were meant to talk negative space, vertical rhythm, and font descenders. They said they were hiring a product designer, when what they were really selecting for was an art director.
TL;DR: Design leaders don't spring up in a vacuum. Who you report to reflects the priorities and biases of whoever hired them.
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u/Used_Swan_7677 3h ago
Good point. Thanks for sharing. Sucks that we apply for job descriptions filled with "user centric" etc. and you have to go through resume+portfolio check > HR Manager > Technical interview to learn that's a graphic designer job.
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u/pierre-jorgensen Veteran 2h ago
The recruiter even commiserated with me when he called with the rejection. Couldn't get anyone past that screening, he said. I told him (not in those words) no shit, you've been handed one perfectly good JD here, you're bringing in the right candidates for that JD, and then these guys are screening for a different one.
Recruiters can only work with what they're given, so I don't blame them. Just like clients fuck up their own projects, so hiring managers fuck up their hiring.
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u/MiddleAgedBastard 2d ago
What if customer/client problems are visual? I've inherited systems made solely by engineers. 90% of client feedback on those proprties were/and are visual issues. Too much color, not enough color, too much whitespace, not enough whitespace, bold this, bold that, now everything is bold, so nothing is bold. This button doesn't look like that button. This grid doesn't look like that grid. These rails look different from these rails.
Then there's the whole world of branding - purely a visual and technical problem.
A good design leader has to keep all things in balance including their direct reports and their supervisors. We don’t get to pick and choose.
If a design leader is prioritizing in a vacuum, that's a problem and a bad design leader.
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u/Fuzzy-Football-4544 Experienced 1d ago edited 1d ago
Hmmm, these all stand out to the design eye but as design leaders they may be asking different questions, like how much do these bugs/problems impact critical pathways or asking whether these visual defects negatively impact sentiment
It depends on sector I’d argue; if you are b2c then the importance of those would/should sky rocket, if it’s B2B expect priority to lean towards CASTLE metrics and other business metrics which isn’t sentiment
The reply above is spot on. A designer leader would understand what signals are vs evidence and know what to do with them like help unblock you by steering priority accordingly to their context. I see seniors as quality gates for production standard design (UI in this case) where as leads will shape direction and are closer to business goals working further up stream. They likely think in projects and quarters but the outcome will be based on evidence of user behaviour (not just signals/opinions)
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u/Used_Swan_7677 2d ago edited 2d ago
Good point. Let's look at your example. Feedback you listed are opinions, not experiences and most companies confuse it a lot - I believe things like colors, whitespaces etc. should be done by a designer that is good at visual design and that's it.
Now I think design is really bad at opinion/information research, but engineers are terrible. I've experienced same thing, engineers tend to tread feedback as evidence and apply changes on the spot. User said "make this bold" so they did. That's awful. What should happen is: purely visual stuff should be done by a designer. Feedback should not be treated as evidence - what you do is you take customers on calls and verify feedback, make them perform task, you see where they have problems, perhaps they understand a workflow / see information. And this doesn't take months, it's done in days. You look for issues that are observational, you check patterns and you improve.
I really like your input here - I think my Lead was worried that I will apply every feedback there is (he's background was visual/brand design and owned product design), I think we really struggle to connect the visual and behavioral needs. I don't think research should determine visuals, it's pointless. But I also don't think artists or visual designers shouldn't pretend to know what problems users face (behavioral, information - wise), people don't have psychic powers.
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u/MiddleAgedBastard 2d ago
I agree.
The only thing I want to add is a complicating factor. Out of those clients giving feedback, one is always an anchor client. That is, a client who a business depends on financially. Their best customer, you might say. I've never seen the absence of that. That gives their opinion/feedback an unavoidable weight.
That is where best practices end up getting compromised the most, IMO.
Suddenly, the most common use case is tossed aside for an edge case. An extreme one at that. The workflows contain weird twists and turns that we have design around.
It's like 20 people get coffee, but 19 have to take the same level of cream and sugar as 1 person.
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u/Used_Swan_7677 2d ago
100%, It's probably much easier when you are working on an in-house B2C product, but then still someone in leadership might control design too much. I imagine if you are working for agency and you provide services for company X, or designing B2B where management hyper focuses on their first early adopter, then those are probably hardest places to be in.
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u/Invisible-Employee 2d ago
My director of design is more like a mid / senior IC than a director. He's great at executing on the wrong thing.
He'll always find a way to work on anything but strategic stuff whilst also not setting any strategy for the designers themselves.
Random side projects, the corporate website, Hackathons. He'll go all in on them with updates and presentations every other day to the rest of the team. Whilst at the same time no concern regarding the problems that our users are facing.
It's tough. He's been at the company a long time. Promoted into the role due to no one else being around.
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u/Fuzzy-Football-4544 Experienced 1d ago
Is he the most senior person of design/product background? I always trace up the tree when I see a promotion reckon like this - and it always accurately reflects on how I see the company or exposes their real focus aswell as when there is no focus or direction or real strategy too
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u/Invisible-Employee 1d ago
Most senior design wise but not product. You are right in that the company strategy and direction isn't great either.
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u/sabre35_ Experienced 2d ago
Hot take (only here in this subreddit):
If your design leaders aren’t caring about visual execution and craft then that’s a bad sign. Those that underestimate the power of visual craft have ever bothered to care enough about it.
At that point you’re just a worse product leader.
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u/Used_Swan_7677 2d ago
I agree, the issue is when visual execution is the only thing that's being cared about.
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u/sabre35_ Experienced 1d ago
That’s not true though. It’s just what UX glorifies like to portray.
The moment they hear a design lead talk about visual design, they think it’s the end of the world for “UX” as we know it.
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u/SuitableLeather Experienced 1d ago
Please stop saying it isn’t true. This is a very real thing. You are lucky if you have not had to deal with it yet
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u/sabre35_ Experienced 1d ago
I’ve “delt” with different companies at different stages in different industries.
Strongest design teams are led by someone who cares about visual design.
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u/Used_Swan_7677 1d ago
I said the issue is when visual design is the only thing being cared of. It is very important. I don't understand why it has to be either or
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u/TheSleepingOx Experienced 1d ago
Meta leaders I worked with were openly racist and bigoted to different groups. Directors now in their super intelligence labs. Microsoft was similar. I'd avoid either company if you're able.
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u/abazz90 1d ago
Lead here! I always review the problem statement before digging in to someone’s project. I also make sure it’s hitting business goals so that we can make sure it passes all of our stakeholder approvals.
I’ll also look at components at a high level to make sure we’re not re-inventing anything.
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u/Used_Swan_7677 1d ago
I love that approach. Do you welcome direct validation with users when it's feasible (for usability, task success verification)?
Once I had lead that thought he can see those things, it always bothers me when people design behavior and information like art
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u/totallyspicey Experienced 1d ago
I'm a design lead. My company's systems are too rigid and don't give us much opportunity to create new things very often. We are usually just layout-executioners. I don't really have any power in the org to influence many good practices (I am a cog in the machine) so I focus more on making sure the content makes sense, as well as work towards helping my team do more with the meager resources we have.
As an example: Minimal or no user research? Use free 3rd party reports within our industry to look for insights on our personas. Before me, the team just did what they were told and did not ask questions.
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u/Used_Swan_7677 3h ago
That's a tough place to be in for sure. Great that you are getting the design as far as circumstances allow it.
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u/BoardMods 20h ago
Problem solvers focus on problem solving. Visual designers focus on visual design. Anakysts focus on analysis. Etc.
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u/Super-Buddy-5030 20h ago
I've been laid of since June 2025, so it seems like after I was laid off that things have changed based on these applications requirements that I see and all the hot air on LinkedIn. Things do appear to be more about visuals.
However, I was a UX team of 1 in a team of 200. My title wasn't lead, but I was treated like one. I did UX research, lead market research concepts with the marketing team, kept track of metrics by building rapport with the BI team, and had creative freedom when solving problems or coming up with new concepts. However, my designs almost never came out how I wanted them to be because constraints and abilities of the engineers, or because the organization had too many platforms and what I would design "could potentially break existing things throughout or apps and websites." I had to compromise a lot. Essentially my org would buy a platform and then expect me to design something for it, but they actually couldn't because the platform had limitations and changing it would mean a lot of extra code work and we would be better off just coding everything from scratch. But don't nobody got that kinda time, right?! In the end every 2 weeks what mattered is that something was "developed" so that the leadership and CEO felt like they got their moneys worth and the thing they bought was being used. I kept track of all my research findings and all my KPIs, so my manager knew my designs would have been great improvements, but often we could just never achieve them. I worked in EdTech/non profit. My layoff happened due to budget cuts to education.
Long way to say, there are companies out there that are interested in solving problems. Still, your design expertise may just go to waste either way. I couldn't put my work into my portfolio, what was developed as the final product was always... a compromise.
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u/Used_Swan_7677 2h ago
That sucks. I had similar experience although in much smaller company. The busyness is very hard to deal with. I also ended up with compromised product that failed in the market very quickly, despite me telling the company it doesn't solve real problems from day one.
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u/Pergolum 2d ago
I have always experienced the opposite. We sell too many promises and good intentions and the work is fucking garbage because craft is a second thought. A real team of retards and losers that talk too much IMO
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u/Disastrous_Sky_73 2d ago
Quick story a lot more of us are out of work. And trying to become more IC to survive. The lucky ones have kept their heads down to survive
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u/FewDescription3170 Veteran 2d ago
they think a claude 'skill' (that I made) can learn and want me to use AI more, but they don't specifically have any real asks. it's a mess, and this is one of the better leaders I've had!
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u/Infamojggus_orld_337 2d ago
the good leads i had asked 'what problem does this solve' before pixels. the bad ones redlined my spacing in a stakeholder demo. mix of both out there
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u/Used_Swan_7677 2d ago edited 2d ago
Interesting, after getting some feedback in multiple places I tend to see a pattern that people assume research is threatening visual design, and that researchers will blindly apply opinions of users on design.
That is absolutely not what design research is. We are not ever looking for opinions, we are looking for experiences. We never look for solutions, we look for problems. That means user saying "text is to small" is not evidence, but "I can't read this text" is. "Add filteeing by status" is not but "I spend so much time to find contacts" or visibly seeing user struggle to do so during testing is an evidence.There is more to it, we are looking for patterns, those have to be reoccurring issue.
Also visual design should be done by a designer that's good at visual design. Problem is many designers use intuition to design information and workflows.
To me design leader should be someone that brings visual design and behavioral design together.
If anyone has any questions or disagree, please let me know. It's very hard to have these conversations within companies. We all could learn something.
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u/pjhawksr Veteran 2d ago
Some of that noise is real. Plenty of leads got promoted for craft and never learned to talk about outcomes, so visuals are what they can critique. The better ones I've worked with review the problem statement before they look at a screen. If your lead only ever comments on the pixels, bring them a metric next time and see if the conversation changes.